We were lucky to catch up with Paul Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.
Paul, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
It all started with my father and cousin. My father is a serial entrepreneur who’s taught me a ton of valuable lessons in business, and in turn created the dream of one day having my own company, or at least being a part owner in one from the ground up. My cousin, and now President of our company, Jonpaul Spees, had been successful in roofing for almost 10 years and my father had idea of starting a roofing company with all of us owning it and Jonpaul leading it with his experience on the job. At first, I was hesitant, but after digging into the industry a bit more and discussing with them, we all felt confident in our abilities to work together and make it work. I was nervous but excited to get it started, not knowing exactly what to expect along the way, but I believed in my cousin with his leadership and field experience, my business and finance experience, and my father’s business experience to be able to figure out whatever is necessary to make it a success.
We believed that having our own company, we could offer customers what we believed was the most important thing for businesses in the industry – customer service and knowledge along with a great product. Jonpaul mentioned specific practices he would do different from his current company and we agreed with him, basing our company off of those principles – treating the customer like family, educating them on the process ensuring they feel comfortable, and making sure their biggest investment (their home) is taken great care of.
I was most excited for two things – first, getting to start a business from the ground up and have a key say in all decisions made for our strategy, and second, getting to be in business with family who I trust and think highly of. I knew our different skill sets complimented each other well and we could make it happen.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’ve always been interested in business, finance, and entrepreneurship, specifically in oil and gas and real estate. I studied finance at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where I also played football for two years, and have worked in wealth management, real estate finance, and now currently in the oil and gas industry Entering into the roofing industry was solely through family, but my background in business and other ventures I had started or taken advantage of being a part in helped develop skills that added value with the other partners’ skill sets to form a well-rounded partnership. I learned that in order to have a successful business, you have to have the right people before you can have the right business. Trustworthy, hardworking people that are focused on the same mission with complimentary skill sets is what I believe are they key pieces for success. I know we have that at P3 Roofing with the people involved.
At P3 Roofing, we provide roofing services to residential and commercial property owners in Texas – from small roof repairs to fully replaced roofs. We feel that what sets us apart is that we take the time to truly educate our clients on what and why we are recommending and doing things. Everyone has been in the position where they feel like they do not know what is going on when they hire someone to fix something, and it creates lack of trust. We want every home/building owner to feel fully confident and comfortable knowing that P3 is doing exactly what is needed, nothing more or less, and doing it exceptionally well for them. That’s what we are most proud of in our work as well, knowing that the client is more educated, and they no longer have to worry about their roof. We aim to make it a better experience for any client, making them feel like they are part of the P3 family.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
As we got started, we wanted to start generating leads as fast as possible, but we did not have too much experience generating leads online between ourselves. Things were very slow to start, and we knew we needed leads to start coming in to 1) generate jobs and 2) generate content from those jobs that we could use for our own advertising and word of mouth referrals. We needed to get something going in order to get going.
I came across a guy named Brandon Ewing who had posted case studies on his business running Google Ads for businesses. He seemed to have a good track record so I messaged him and we got talking. We did not have a big budget for advertising and did not want to dump a lot of money, but we knew we had to take a risk and spend money to hopefully make money. We applied for a 0% business credit card to pay for all advertising, that way if it went wrong, we could just pay off the losses over time. Brandon helped us get set up on Google Ads, and we immediately started receiving leads that week, and have not looked back since. It felt like a big risk, but finding that right person and taking the jump helped us really get started. We still work with Brandon now, and have gotten to the point to where we are also running TV commercials.
How did you build your audience on social media?
We view social media as the best way to advertise our work and get word of mouth referrals. Our strategy with social media is post as much quality content as possible (whether of jobs, clients, reviews, education, etc) and make sure people are seeing it. Once you post, either get your network to share it, or pay to sponsor posts for more views. This allows more and more people to see your business, and volume is everything when you’re trying to get going. People have to know about you in order to know they can use you. I learned that from my father and it has proven true time after time.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.p3roofing.net
- Instagram: @p3_roofing
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086186597338